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The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)

BACKGROUND: Mere possibility is not an adequate basis for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relativ...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Abel, David L
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796651/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19958539
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4682-6-27
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author Abel, David L
author_facet Abel, David L
author_sort Abel, David L
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Mere possibility is not an adequate basis for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relative and subjective as plausibility ever be quantified? Amazingly, the answer is, "Yes." A method of objectively measuring the plausibility of any chance hypothesis (The Universal Plausibility Metric [UPM]) is presented. A numerical inequality is also provided whereby any chance hypothesis can be definitively falsified when its UPM metric of ξ is < 1 (The Universal Plausibility Principle [UPP]). Both UPM and UPP pre-exist and are independent of any experimental design and data set. CONCLUSION: No low-probability hypothetical plausibility assertion should survive peer-review without subjection to the UPP inequality standard of formal falsification (ξ < 1).
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spelling pubmed-27966512009-12-22 The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP) Abel, David L Theor Biol Med Model Research BACKGROUND: Mere possibility is not an adequate basis for asserting scientific plausibility. A precisely defined universal bound is needed beyond which the assertion of plausibility, particularly in life-origin models, can be considered operationally falsified. But can something so seemingly relative and subjective as plausibility ever be quantified? Amazingly, the answer is, "Yes." A method of objectively measuring the plausibility of any chance hypothesis (The Universal Plausibility Metric [UPM]) is presented. A numerical inequality is also provided whereby any chance hypothesis can be definitively falsified when its UPM metric of ξ is < 1 (The Universal Plausibility Principle [UPP]). Both UPM and UPP pre-exist and are independent of any experimental design and data set. CONCLUSION: No low-probability hypothetical plausibility assertion should survive peer-review without subjection to the UPP inequality standard of formal falsification (ξ < 1). BioMed Central 2009-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC2796651/ /pubmed/19958539 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4682-6-27 Text en Copyright ©2009 Abel; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Abel, David L
The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title_full The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title_fullStr The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title_full_unstemmed The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title_short The Universal Plausibility Metric (UPM) & Principle (UPP)
title_sort universal plausibility metric (upm) & principle (upp)
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2796651/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19958539
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1742-4682-6-27
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